Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wednesday November 07, 2007 @02:15PM
from the pick-your-poison dept.

An anonymous reader writes to mention that while a couple of years ago researchers found that overweight people have a lower death rate than people with a normal weight, it may be more complicated than that. "Now, investigating further, they found out which diseases are more likely to lead to death in each weight group. Linking, for the first time, causes of death to specific weights, they report that overweight people have a lower death rate because they are much less likely to die from a grab bag of diseases that includes Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, infections and lung disease. And that lower risk is not counteracted by increased risks of dying from any other disease, including cancer, diabetes or heart disease."

Cliff Mark writes: "NinjaTickets is a ticket search engine and comparison shopping tool that helps you find the best prices for sports, concert, and theater tickets. NinjaTickets is impartial and offers industry exclusive Live Results. www.NinjaTickets.com"

DrEnter writes: A man in Bangalore, India was wrongfully arrested and imprisoned for 50 days after being misidentified as the individual who posted images deemed insulting to a revered historical figure. The Indian police asked for, and Google provided, the IP address of the user which was then given to the ISP Airtel, who misidentified it as belonging to someone it didn't. That someone than spent the next 50 days in jail (including 3 weeks AFTER the real individual was caught). Disturbingly, when questioned if the authorities provided a court order or merely asked for the anonymous poster's info., Google was hazy about the answer, only saying that they complied with Indian law.

greymond writes: I recently received an email from a recruiting company for a Graphic Design / Desktop Publishing position. While I have my resume available online as well as pieces of my portfolio I didn't find it at all strange to receive this initial email. I hadn't responded by the afternoon when I received a call from a lady named Pyra who asked me to send her my latest resume because they were very interested in hiring me. I asked about the positions pay since the job title and position seemed like it would be a lot lower pay grade than my current Art Director position I now hold. She said she would inquire about it, but to please send my resume.

Now here is where it gets strange...I sent my resume off (note: my resume has only my name, number and email listed in it — no address) I then received this email asking for my Social Security Number. I found this to be VERY odd as no one ever has asked me for that, save the human resource manager of a company who has already hired me. When I told her I would wait until the interview to give it to them, I was then sent this email which had this letter attached to it. I responded with the same response and needless to say I haven't heard back from them.

Oh and in case my bandwidth gets blown up, the recruiting company was Agneto and the company they were hiring for was supposedly AT&T. So, is this really just a new elaborate scam or just a really bad new business policy?

An anonymous reader writes: How many industries of late have managed to generate such genuine consumer hatred over the last several years? says Richard Menta about the record industry. He was refering to that industry's aggressive activities to control its content in the digital age and he makes a solid argument that these efforts, including oppressive DRM tactics and legal actions, have alienated the consumer to the point where it is a key contributor to decreasing CD revenues. This quarter alone EMI saw a 20% drop in CD sales, while Warners 3rd quarter loss widened. The article lays out 17 events including the Sony rootkit scandal and the payola scandal that have tarnished the industry's public image and undermined its credibility with the average record buyer.

soapthgr8 writes: "In an attempt to provide a meaningful name for their newborn, a New Zealand couple has encountered resistance from the Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages. It seems that "numerals are not allowed" in names, although, the Registrar-General indicates that the "name has not at this stage been rejected." How far is too far for governmental prevention of the crime of possible "offense"? This appears to cross that line."

mbstone writes: "Richard Brodie, the original author of MS Word and a poker pro, has been banned from Caesars Palace and all other casinos owned by Harrah's Entertainment Corp. — including a ban on his participating in the 2007 World Series of Poker — because, get this, he got lucky and won three royal flushes on video poker for $240,000 each. Not for cheating, or even for card counting, just for being lucky. Harrah's management has obviously never heard of the law of averages!"

An anonymous reader writes: Dell replies to extended warranty claims on Ubuntu systems. "Recently, folks like Slashdot and others reported that we are no longer offering extended warranties or CompleteCare on Ubuntu-based systems. User johnnyk submitted an idea on IdeaStorm asking us to bring back warranty options for these systems. The short answer — we will soon."

reno writes: Reuters reports on a new study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research that found that the United States is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation or holiday time: 'Most U.S. firms do in fact give employees vacations, but the lack of government guarantees means one in four private sector workers does not get paid leave... [According to economist John Schmitt,] "It's a national embarrassment that 28 million Americans don't get any paid vacation or paid holidays."'

GGCRabidGopher writes: "Being both a big fan of PDA's and Firefox, I had to ask myself why there is no Firefox browser for either the Palm OS or Windows Mobile. The standard version of IE that ships with windows mobile is very limited in it's ability do much of anything. There has to be a better mobile browser available but maybe I am just missing something."

u-bend writes: "Discovery has an article about a massive melt detected in a region of Antarctica previously thought to be virtually impervious to such a climate shift.

From the article:
'A team of scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and the University of Colorado said new satellite imagery had revealed a vast expanse of snow melt in 2005 where it had previously been considered unlikely.

The NASA statement described the findings as "the most significant melt observed using satellites during the past three decades."'

Rather interesting in light of recent discussions about the pros and cons of global warming."

jackstack writes: "From bbc: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6647011.stm
"A free programming tool that allows anyone to create their own animated stories, video games and interactive artworks has been developed.
Primarily aimed at children, Scratch does not require prior knowledge of complex computer languages.
Instead, it uses a simple graphical interface that allows programs to be assembled like building blocks.
The digital toolkit, developed in the US at MIT's Media Lab, allows people to blend images, sound and video.
"Computer programming has been traditionally seen as something that is beyond most people — it's only for a special group with technical expertise and experience," said Professor Mitchel Resnick, one of the researchers at the Lifelong Kindergarten group at MIT.
"We have developed Scratch as a new type of programming language, which is much more accessible.""

An anonymous reader writes: I am an IT professional, and due to budget constraints, I have been told to install multiple copies of MS Office, despite offering to install OpenOffice, and other OpenSource Office products. Even though most of the uses are for people using Excel like a database, or formatting of text in cells, other programs are not tolerated. I have been over ruled by our controller, to my disagreement.
Other than drafting a letter to the owners of the company on how I disagree with the policy, what else can I do? I would never turn them in, but I am in tough place by knowing doing something illegal. I want to keep my job, but disagree with some of the decision making on this issue.